Monday, April 12, 2010

Today, I had my second vaccination for the UW clinical trial. We started with a history and physical. I told Dr. C about all the little side effects that I got after last week's vaccine:

- the cold sore on my lip (Nurse D. says that this seems to happy to a lot of their patients)

- fatigue and how long it lasted

- flu-like symptoms in the 48-72 hour window (patients usually get this within 48 hours; I told him that I tend to take a little longer to react to things and this didn't surprise him); Thursday night I was tired and achey, so I had Tylenol, a hot bath, and some tea and it helped immensely

- fighting a cold/sore throat for the past few days (sore throat comes and goes, I think I get a sore throat when I'm tired)

- headaches (hard to know if it's a tension headache or from the vaccine)

No real reaction on my arm where the vaccine was given. No heart palpitations. Not much else going on. He just took a note of my symptoms and then I waited for the vaccine. We waited about an hour for the vaccine and then waited another hour after that. But it was fine. Amy and I colored mandalas and visited and joked with my neighbor/patient, S. (not the same person as last week). She was there with her parents and her aunt and they were a hoot. We laughed and joked and gave Dr. C a hard time. I told him the Onions and Christmas Trees joke - I think he was a little shocked. S. and her family played cards. Amy told Redneck jokes.

Amy and I went down to Pike Street Market afterwards - we ate lunch in this hole-in-the-wall kind of place - maybe Korean - and I ate a really good curry tofu with veggies. Then, we wandered around - I bought some salmon jerky and Amy really wanted to visit this bakery - we bought some delicious donuts there!

Then we headed home. We made it back to Hwy. 34 exit on I-5 in record time. Came home to some yummy spaghetti and my raspbery bismarck for dessert! Yay!

So, all-in-all a successful quick trip to Seattle. We'll see how I feel in the next couple of days. I may feel tired again . . . I head back next week. Have a great week!